Contents

Dialects

The linguistic varieties of Extremadura are usually classified in three main branches: Northern or "High" (artu estremeñu), Central or "Middle" (meyu estremeñu), and Southern or "Low" (baju estremeñu).[5] The northern one is usually considered to be the language proper,[6] and is spoken in the north-west of the autonomous region of Extremadura, and the south-west of Salamanca, a province of the autonomous region of Castile and León. The central and southern ones are spoken in the rest of Extremadura, and are not different enough from standard Spanish to be considered anything but dialects of it, since at least the 18th century.

Northern Extremaduran is also spoken in a few villages of southern Salamanca, being known there as the "palra d'El Rebollal", which is now almost extinct.

History

After the union of the kingdoms of León and Castile (into the "Crown of Castile and León"),[when?] the Castilian language slowly replaced Latin as the official language of the institutions, thus relegating Old Leonese to a sign of poverty and ignorance of those who spoke it. Only in Asturias, where the language was born, were people conscious of speaking a language different from Castilian;[citation needed] but even there only some authors used it in their writings.

It was probably the cultural upheaval of Spanish-speaking Salamanca's University that was the cause of the rapid Castilianisation of the eastern parts of this province, so dividing the Astur-Leonese domain between Asturian, Leonese and the Extremaduran in the south of the old Leonese kingdom.[citation needed]

The late 19th century saw the first serious attempt to write in Extremaduran, up to then an oral language,[7] with the poet José María Gabriel y Galán. Born in Salamanca, he lived most of his life in the north of Cáceres, Extremadura. He wrote in a local variant of Extremaduran, full with dialectal remains, but always with an eye on Spanish usage.

After that, localisms are the pattern in the attempts to defend the Extremaduran language, to the extent that today only a few people are trying to revive the language and make northern Extremadura a bilingual region,[8] whereas the government and official institutions seem to think the best solution is for northwestern Extremadurans to speak a Castilian dialect without any kind of protection.[9] There are also attempts to transform the southern Castilian dialects ("castúo", as some people named them using the word which appeared in Luis Chamizo's poems) into a language, which makes it even harder to defend High Extremaduran, considered more frequently a "real" language, and makes it easier for the administration to reject co-officiality and the normalisation of Extremaduran.[10] It is in serious danger of extinction, with only the oldest people speaking it at present, while most of the Extremaduran population ignores the language, since the majority of Extremadurans, and even its own speakers, regard it as a poorly spoken Spanish.[11]

Preservation of some old voiced fricatives, such as some instances of [ð] corresponding to [z] in Portuguese or [θ] corresponding to [s] in Portuguese (both corresponding to /θ/ in Spanish). This feature is an archaism preserved from Old Spanish or Old Astur-Leonese, as it happens only when it is etymologically justified. When a voiced fricative appears, one also does in languages such as Catalan or Portuguese: Extremaduran tristeza[triʰtˈteða] 'sadness' (still voiced in Portuguese tristeza[tɾiʃˈtezɐ], voice lost in Spanishtristeza[trisˈteθa]), but Extremaduran cabeça[kaˈβeθa] 'head' (voiceless also in Portuguese cabeça[kɐˈβesɐ], Spanish cabeza[kaˈβeθa]). This feature is dying out quite fast but is found all over the High Extremaduran speaking area.

Usage of a vocative-exclamative case. When nouns are in the vocative, the closing of post-tonic vowels (e into i and o into u) disappears and those vowels open. El Ramiru quíi venil (Ramiro wants to come), but Ramiro, ven pacá (Ramiro, come here!). Sé quién lo vidu, Pepi (I know who saw it, Pepe did), but Sé quién lo vidu, Pepe (I know who saw it, Pepe). This is a charasteristic shared with the Fala language. Extremaduran and the Fala language are actually the only western Romance languages with a distinct form of vocative case for nouns formed with a change in the ending.

Usage of the preposition a with the verbs andal and estal indicating static temporal location, contrasting with the usage of en. Está a Caçris "He's in Cáceres (for a few days), está en Caçris "He's in Cáceres", Está pa Caçris "He's around Cáceres".

A very frequent usage of deictic forms to which enclitic pronouns can be added at the end. They can be used in the middle of a sentence: Velaquí la mi casa (Here is my house), velallilu (there he is), Paquí se curtivan velaquí lechugas, millu... (Look, lettuce, corn and so on is grown here).

** Extremaduran words in this table are spelled according to Ismael Carmona García's orthography

Organizations and media

There exists a regional organization in Extremadura, APLEx,[13] which tries to defend the Extremaduran language (and also the Spanish dialects of Extremadura), one journal (Belsana) and one cultural newspaper, Iventia,[14] written in the new unified Extremaduran and the old dialect "palra d'El Rebollal".